Wednesday, November 23, 2011

This is truly a time for the Davis family to be thankful! As Lydia and Jeff are approaching their first anniversary, and my sweet Larry's health is doing so much better than last year, I'm grateful. We have dinner in the works. The house smells like Pumpkin Pie Cake today, yum! The still frozen turkey is thawing. Cornbread stuffin' with my Momma's recipe is happening either later today or early tomorrow. The zucchini is grated for bread, here's the recipe for you:

1. Grease and flour two 8x4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Combine flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugars together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into the prepared pans.
4. Combine topping ingredients, cutting in butter. Topping can be sprinkled on before baking, or after the first 10 minutes of baking to keep it from sinking.
5. Bake for 40 - 60 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool.

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Ginny's two quilts for Kaylee were quilted this weekend, one is a dolly quilt made to match Kaylee's, and both are adorable ~

We planned both blankets around the cute paper doll print, which when she bought it a year back, she only got one yard. Much planning around the little amount made us use all but a couple of 4 inch squares!

We chose the coordinates to match prints of the little doll dresses ~

~ To all the sweet ladies who come visiting via the blog, thank you for your friendship and comments! They bless my heart, and I'm sending back many hugs to you. I'm grateful for you, your creativity and inspiration through your blogs. Happy Thanksgiving, be it your holiday now or on another day ~

Psalm 100: 1-5 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before His presence with singing.Know ye that the LORD He is God: It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Mandatory Parent Teacher Conferences are complete! I've met with all of my 23 student's parents, but my schedule had me at school until 5:30 or 6 because of the working parents needing later times. Even with all the business, I've had a good week. I taught Monday and Tuesday and jury duty Wednesday which ended up being 2 phone calls before dismissal (for which I was grateful).

Thursday morning Ginny and I went and directed the swapping of 48 sets of I Spy bags, 2 prints each (so we ended up with 96 prints). Our teacher has 5 classes she instructs, ours is on Monday night in a different city, but Susan travels between three cities, and the 3 quilting classes participated in the swap. It took all of a 3 hour class time to do the exchange! The ladies in that class were friendly and helpful, everyone oo-ohed and awed over the prints, and yes I'd host a swap again. So many people were interested that missed out on this swap, that we may end up hosting the same thing in the Spring semester. There were a few repeats but that is to be expected.

With the I Spy swap I participated in online, thanks to dear Karen of Sew Many Ways, I now have enough prints to do a couple of these novelty quilts. I want to finish one for my class of second graders. I Spy books have been a favorite of this age group for every year I've worked with 5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds.

These are my 4 blocks for Block Lotto this month. This is another great pattern of Bonnie Hunter. I'm always a bit surprised when I speak of her to quilters who don't know about her!

I wanted to do at least 4 blocks, so I could lay then out in the diamond, and the X.

Friday, Ginny and I worked to complete the borders on the last of her grandkid's gift quilts. Now, they are ready for the quilting machine. Maybe my next post will be a "what's on the frame" ...hoo,hoo!

"Seeing that we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith..." Hebrews 12:1,2

Sunday, November 6, 2011

"Jungle Babies" is a collaboration of Lydia's fine embroidery, and my piecing.

This is a wall hanging for Lydia's good friend and Matron of Honor Jessica. Jess wanted a jungle theme, and Lydia has been hand embroidering these little animals for a month now!

She drew her own figures, but did get the monkey and the elephant off the internet. She put them on white cotton, and began stitching!

I told her I'd put them together, but we really did not have a certain direction. I had purchased a few animal prints, but they seemed to detract from all these sweetly stitched characters.

I wanted to do something that framed each piece, and saw this little bag of tidbits I purchased for a buck. The Quiet Mouse Quilt Shop in Calimesa cuts 2 1/2" strips for their customers, (also from their quilt kits) and sometimes has little scraps that they bag and sell as tidbits. I sewed the tiny strips into blocks, and then cut my own 2 1/2" strips

to surround Lydia's handsome blocks. This was an idea that grew as it progressed, and I loved the creative process!

Lydia still plans to stitch the Bible verse so we asked for it back to complete it.

I'm glad Jessica liked it!

~ Lydia spent about 15-20 hours on each character, a labor of love for her friend ~

I guess you get the picture. Oh, and my Second Graders cook for our Thanksgiving Party. I am trying not to complain (much) but it's just kinda busy. I know you folks are, too, so thanks for poppin' in !

"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" Romans 11:33

Hi, I'm Pokey!

What's in a Name?

So, my name is like this, Gwen is my given name, and growing up it was family that called me that. But about Jr. High, the name Pokey was what I became known as. ( Slow to get the jokes, slow to complete the work, but I call that perfectionism! or, procrastination....) When I'm at work, most people there call me Gwen (or Mrs. Davis, I'm a teacher.)BUT, my honey calls me Pokey. When I got married, our Pastor asked, "Pokey, do you take this man..." At church, I'm Pokey. My friends call me Pokey. As a matter of fact, Pokey Davis is a registered 'alias' at my bank, because occasionally people will write it on checks made out to me-! You get to choose where you want to fit. I answer to any. I wanted folks to know, the name 'Pokey' wasn't made up just for blogging!